DON'T MAKE WAVES SCRIPT
This is a transcription of the script of Trevor Grifftihs' BBC TV play that Tony Donaghey managed to copy.
I added - in bold type - the lyrics of Kevin's songs (from a bootleg recording of the TV
play - songs only - and which is included in a boot called "Babble,
Live, Rock Club"). I'm not sure the songs are in the right sequence...
1 -
STANDBY TK
TELECINE - SOF
ELEVENTH HOUR GENERIC TITLES (approx. 15")'
TJ'S
1. "DON'T.MAKE WAVES"
2. by TREVOR GRIFFITHS and SNOO WILSON
3. with songs by KEVIN COYNE .
(Camera approaches set from afar. Over this loudhailer. Room full of smoke. Signed-photos behind the bar. Convoluted announcement from outside. Kevin recommences playing. The crowd at the bar go back to drinking. We single out the guvnor.)
ALSO THERE:
ESTELLE.
GEE GEE an old beauty queen, Leo's mother
JUNE dressed as Queen Elizabeth
ERIC the "barman, 50's vicious, moustache
LEO dressed as Henry VIII
ROBERT dressed as Chief-Scout
THE GUV'NOR old, toothless
TWO WOMEN with black eyes, Renee and Beryl
SIMON young man, June's companion.
LOUDSPEAKER ANNOUNCMENT
Er.... This is an announcement... This is an announcement.
(PAUSE)
Due to unforeseen difficulties resulting from rubble, any persons still remaining in the Merry Widow Club should stay put until contacted by a fireman, who should be with you shortly.
The fireman is endeavouring to effect an entrance by the roof. We have the fire under control.
(CLICK) (CLICK)
GUVNOR:
They'd come in faster if it was their club, I'll be bound.
LOUDSPEAKER ANNOUNCEMENT contd.... Thank you.
(CLICK)
(People have been standing listening to the announcement on the edge of the room)
LEO:
What next?
RENEE:
What a farce.
SIMON:
This'll put us back
GEE GEE:
Where's all that water come from? Look at it, I ask you.
RENEE:
Never mind, wonderful way to go, drinking with friends.
(They move back to the bar. Kevin starts strumming through the smoke on the other side of the water)
KEVIN: A SONG
Don't make waves they might tread on
you
Don't make waves they might bleed on
you
Don't break waves the waves are breaking
through
Don't make friends they might tread
on you, on you
(At a certain time we cut to a face shot of the guvwr. He speaks to camera.)
GUVNOR:
When I heard the explosion, it was a big explosion. I was having me tea, I allude of course to the zeppelin raids on Great Yarmouth which demolished a bakery near my lodgings in 19..l4. They failed to bring us low then, and bombs don*t frighten me. We are a hardy people,
(gesture round room)
Hitler's war, if I recall correctly, was just the same. And I fought in the Boer war.
I could have stayed in South Africa, with me 25% disability pension, but I yearned for the mother country and my own kind» And in 19.. (PAUSE) I set sail for home.
(two women signal for more beer. Eric goes off to get another crate)
ERIC:
(moves off, ringer up) be with you in a moment.
(The guvnor shuffles round to serve at the bar instead of sitting in front of it.)
(Cut to 2 women. one has her bag out. Fiddling money out of bay as they go on talking)
RENEE:
I said we shouldn't have come here, it's always the same at the end of the week. Anyway, I was saying... (she can't remember)
BERYL:
Your thighs.
RENEE:
Yes, Alfred likes my thighs. He's always liked my thighs,
BERYL:
You've got nice thighs.
RENEE:
He sits and looks at them. They are quite nice. I didn't like my body when I was growing up. Used to frighten me.
BERYL;
Looking in the mirror...
RENEE:
Everybody did that. I didn't like anybody else looking.
BERYL:
Fred likes my body, but he doesn't like talking about it. I'd like him to talk about it, -Fact I asked him. But he won't. (Laughs) I caught him sniffing me boots one day. On his kness he was, by the wardrobe sniffing me boots.
RENEE:
sniffing your boots?
BERYL:
Yeah.
RENEE:
What happened?
BERYL:
When he saw me watching him, he got up and went and made a pot of tea.
(Eric comes to table with drinks. They stare at him. He smoothes his moustache, taking their money)
BERYL: (as Eric goes)
He's the new boy isn't he? He's nice.
(Robert, the 'chief scout' is playing dice on the bar with Leo. no words, stacks of money. Robert keeps winning the pot. Leo keeps putting money in)
ROBERT:
Who's for drinkies?
LEO:
It's my round,
ROBERT: (to camera)
There's bound to be casualties., There always are. At the coroner's inquest I shall say human nature is a very funny thing. But that's not going to bring back the dead. I watched my wife die, I was unfaithful to her before that. I won't tell you the details. You don't want to hear about my wife. You journalists are all the same. . You don't care about personal disaster,. If the right laws were passed, we could clean this place up in two months. Your honour.
KEVIN: A SONG
?? and its industry, all the neighbors like a police on my feet, I've got a tent, it's quite a building, I don't pay a rent, I ??, I've got a badge, I'm very flash, there's a hole in my tent where the rain comes through.
(June stands by the pool, Simon behind her)
SIMON:
I didn't know the party was tonight
LEO:
It was moved
SIMON:
I would have changed. I've left copper you know, I'm in grain futures now...
LEO:
What would you have come as?
SIMON:
I don't know...
(To June personally)
I got you that cassette recorder by the way.
JUNE:
Oh thank you, how much do I owe...?
SIMON:
Do any time,... Just drop round when you've got it.
LEO:
I mean are you a roundhead or a cavalier?
JUNE: (To Simon)
You must tell me how much I owe you.
SIMON: (To Leo)
Well I'm a royalist aren't I? :
LEO:
Why?
JUNE:
Yes, why?
SIMON: : (Embarrassed Smirk)
I suppose I must fancy the queen.
KEVIN: A SONG
I do, I love that queen, she gave me a view, we yodelled all the way through, we sit to tea with the king. Mother is there with a stare, apron full of coal but we share the coal with her, I love the queen.
JUNE:
I was awful at history. Mummy got this for me.
LEO:
Tudors and Stuarts are well known surely? .
JUNE:
Yes, but, I don't - I didn't see, you see, when I was at school, what possible connections it had with me and the present day. And I can't sew.
LEO:
It has, terrifically.
GEE GEE:
We're Catholics, We come from Preston.
JUNE:
Oh.
LEO.
Preston's a very catholic town. Almost untouched by the reformation.
SIMON:
I think the past is silly actually. I deal in futures. I'm buying grain now that hasn't even been planted.
GEE GEE; .
Well I don't live in the future, I live in the past...
LEO:
You tell 'em Mum. Star of Bournemouth, '54.
SIMON:
We can change the future, depending on what we buy.
(Opens an envelope of commodity futures)
LEO:
I'm a complete fatalist. Things just happen to me. I drift along - just noticing things that happen. I suppose,...
GEE GEE:
What did the future ever bring?
SIMON:
Bring, the future doesn't bring anything. It doesn't exist.
(Pats envelope)
This is the future.
GEE GEE:
The future doesn't make you young again.
JUNE:
Except young at heart. But that's different.
GEE GEE:
I used to be a beauty queen. I'm going as a beauty queen tonight. Well, what I mean is, I'm defying time, I'm turning back the clock.
(She turns away)
SIMON: . -
It can't be done. You can only change things going forward. Sorry I was interrupting,
LEO:
You don't know my Mother.
SIMON:
It can't be done. Where's last year's harvest? Who cares?
JUNE:
Oh I see. You mean it's flushed away, and....
SIMON:
Yes.
JUNE:
And only the sewage workers care...
LEO:
And the microbes.
KEVIN: REPRISE OF SONG
Under the water, something black and breathy, what's that down in the water, something black and breathy, up swim, up swim, come up whoever you are, what's that down there in the water, in the water George, what's that in the water, what's that in the water George, microbe, it's microbe, so much under there.
RENEE: (low voice to Beryl)
Yes I have been to bed with more than one man. I can tell you -it seems like yesterday - I was a bit nervous at the time. It was Fred and his friend, Marcus who wanted to. So we' d all had enough to make us tight for a week. We were staying in a boarding house up in Whitby. I said it's not my idea of fun, but you can do anything you want with me. The man who ran-it had to go off -I can't! remember why -
BERYL:
His brother got married in Canada.
RENEE:
Oh. Have I told you?
BERYL:
No. I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall then.
RENEE:
How did you know about his brother?
BERYL:
It doesn't matter. Go on.
(She doesn't)
BERYL:
If I had my life over again, I wouldn't get married. There are other ways of, you know, pleasing people.
RENEE:
What would you do?
BERYL:
It must be possible to please people and have a good time. I think I'd have a good time, It's the only way, in the end. He should make me happy, but I'm not,
(cut away to general shot of group)
GUVNOR:
On behalf of everybody's nerves - drinks on the house.
(Kevin's glass is empty)
ERIC:
Bring your drinks to the bar, everybody,
GUV'NOR:
I think that an historic occasion like this calls for a little moment.
ERIC:
What d'you mean?
GUVNOR;
Well we're alive, aren't we? It's not everyday the club roof falls in. A few snapshots of the survivors.
RENEE:
We're not out of the wood yet.
ERIC:
I'll take the photos.
GUVNOR:
Well, I'll sit in the first one,
(They line up for a photograph)
Such a pity we're not all in fancy dress.
(Ad lib dialogue)
ERIC: (thro' teeth)
Lesbian!
ALL: (thro' teeth)'
Lesbian!
(Flash, the formal group breaks up and reforms with a reluctant eric. guvnor takes camera.)
GUV'NOR: .
Sit down Eric. We'll have a mugshot.
ERIC: (sotto voce)
You don't understand... I don't want my photo takes... please.
GEE GEE:
I'll look awful. I know I will. This light's terrible.
LEO:
No you don't Mum.
GUVNOR:
A hardy people
(He takes the camera. . flash)
Eric - you - had your napkin over your mouth at the crucial flash.
ERIC:
It doesn't matter... Please not again.
GUVNOR:
You have to spruce up for history.
ERIC:
Yes - I know.
(Close us on Eric as photos are flashed of him as he stands there.)
ERIC: contd....
When I tell people half of what I've done, it takes them by surprise and they think me much more remarkable than if I tell the whole story. I have a way of dulling the edge of a story with character. I have seen things you will never see. I have killed a man inside the Vatican, for money. I smuggled cocaine from Marseilles. I don't even know the people who I used to smuggle. Paki's with - on this coast. Nobody knew who I really was. I had four passports. The man who killed someone in the Vatican was called Charles Leaver. Not ay name. Not me. He looked very different. No moustache. Change a persons name and they can do anything. Interested? I came apart. I went to a very expensive psychiatrist who said that I should choose either a life of crime where I would suffer identity crises, or do a decent job - and he took the rest of my money, he had to sue me for it, and I have an untaxed MGB. 2'0' levels and I'm broke. Several bits of me are still on the run.
KEVIN'S SONG: (GOOD BOY)
(Rest of group has-melted - : away round him. he's left on his own)
Cut to: table with Leo, June, Robert, Guvnor
SIMON;
History is, er, bunk, eh?
LEO:
Henry VIII existed.
GUV'NOR;
Henry Ford existed.
LEO:
Exactly.
ROBERT:
I don't understand.
LEO:
It was a long time ago, but it was still important.
SIMON:
I don't care. They were just the same as us.
GUVNOR (Champagne)
Let us toast each other.
ROBERT:
But your roof's fallen in!
GUVNOR:
I may even:live to collect the insurance!
(Loudspeaker starts up outside. People discontinue process -shush each other.)
Loudspeaker voice:
This is an announcement. This is an announcement. (Pause) If-there are persons still obstructed by rubble in the Merry Widow Club, the fireman on the roof...
(The announcement ends abruptly. They turn their gaze upward. Rubble and potatoes fall into the pool - silence.,(potatoes, some in torn sacks, some loose.) Then a gumboot falls - pause.)
GUVNOR:
Customers to keep away from the pool there, thank you.
(He ushers them back looks up at the hole)
Are you there, fireman? Is that you? We're down here. Can I offer any assistance? I'm the owner.
SIMON:
Who owns all these potatoes?
ROBERT:
Ask him about the potatoes.
(Silence Again)
GUVNOR:
I'd rather not, Robert. All right?
ROBERT:
Scout'shonour. Keep Mum, like Dad.
GEE GEE:
What is that place up there anyway?
JUNE:
Is it a balcony?
GUVNOR: (curtly)
No idea.
(A pallet of sugar in bags falls into the pool)
JUNE: (back at table)
Shouldn't some of you men be working out some sort of an escape plan?
GUVNOR:
Don't be silly, madam.
JUNE:
What about a human pyramid up to the roof.
GUV'NOR:
You don't want to touch that water, you don't know what's in that water.
SIMON:
Well it's mostly potatoes, isn't it. Are they yours?
GUVNOR:
I ruined me back in a human pyramid.
SIMON: (knowingly)
Like I said, deal in future. Otherwise you simply end up with a pile of rotten spuds and pouring sugar down the drain.
GUVNOR:
I'll get a hundred grand out of this little lot, don't fret.
(Kevin wades over to get beer. Picks out 6 bottles of light ale and goes back)
GEE GEE:
I don't blame him for keep a little bit back.
(Mutter of assent)
It's human nature, isn't it? We can all of us remember hardtimes
JUNE:
I was born in 1953...
RENEE:
You used to be able to get out through the ladies.
(Silence. She's ignored)
.JUNE:
How deep is it?
SIMON:
I suppose we shall all have to wade across when they beat down the door? If you like, I'll throw down my cloak for you.
JUNE:
I don't know.
LEO:
What cloak?
JUNE:
I'm not afraid of water.
SIMON:
It was a joke. Who wants a drink?
ROBERT:
I really shouldn't drink anymore, I shall get fat.
BERYL: (To Renee)
Shutting the stage door after the horse
has bolted
(Gee Gee goes to pool. Eric gets them all drinks. They order their own)
[handwritten] BERYL:
[handwritten] What's he talking about? He is fat.
ROBERT:
(Piffling notes of his speech)
My Lords, ladies and gentlemen... it was with considerable pleasure that I agreed to, be your judge here tonight at the Cold Ash Licensed Victuallers' Fancy Dress. Ball. As an ex-mayor of this town and Chairman of Cold Ash Hard Casings Limited, which employs 345 personnel, I'm sure I'll be forgiven for offering you a few...
(Eric gives him a fat envelope full of banknotes. He checks contents)
Thank you, Eric. Very kind.
(hands him one back, a tip, picks up glass & toasts guv'nor)
Cut to: Gee Gee (Pool)
KEVIN: A SONG
You need a rose, your cab is at the
door
Rose, you need a pose, you can't pose
anymore
Rose, you need a rose, your cab is waiting
at the door
I say rose rose rose, you need a rose,
the rose is dead upon the floor
I said rose rose rose, you need a rose, what are you waiting for?
(During this speech Gee Gee has been gazing at the water. in amongst the detritus, she finds a bunch of roses. She picks them out toward the conclusion of Robert's speech. anu hugs them to her breast)
GEE GEE: (voice returning to a simper)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. (returns to bar)
Could you put them in clean water please Eric?
ERIC: (unwilling) All right.
GUVNOR:
Nice roses.... Oh Eric, we need some more pale ales.
ERIC: Store room's under water.
LEO:
Is the vater rising?
GUVNOR:
There' no shortage of gin.
JUNE: Are we going to drown?
GUVNOR: :
Take it in singles you'll be all right.
SIMON:
Answer the questions.
GUVNOR:
01 course not. Ve're on a hill, Vater flows off. I've never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life
LEO:
It's not on a hill
(we fade over to Renee and Beryl)
RENEE:
I've never known it so quiet of a Friday.
BERYL:
If we can't get out, they can't get in.
RENEE:
Anyway' he said I had to do it. So I did.
BERYL:
You didn't.
RENEE:
I did.
(PAUSE)
BERYL:
Did you like it?
(Renee looks puzzled by the question)
(Simon arrives with their drinks)
SIMON:
Good evening ladies - I wondered if I could interrupt for a.moment. Your drinks I think.
RENEE:
Oh thank you. Very kind.
[handwritten] SIMON:
[handwritten] Did you think any further about the grain futures?
BERYL:
I'm sorry. The deal's off.
SIMON:
This isn't good now. Now we've
lost the £11.00 deal in grain futures.
(PAUSE)
[handwritten] SIMON:
[handwritten] (Absorbing it, phlegmatically) Mmmm.
I don't suppose either of you would be interested in a tape recorder? - cassette - possibly?
RENEE:
Do what?
SIMON: (defeated)
It doesn't matter.
(Goes to June who is sitting alone)
SIMON:
Don't worry, I'll see you through,
(Nothing from June)
I feel as if I've got to know you really - almost quite well. I know I haven't talked to you...
(June looks away. We hear over...,) --
ERIC:
I can't swim! I've got to get out!
JUNE: (To Simon)
Could you get me a lime juice?
Cut to: Eric, voice rising
ERIC:
I can't swim. There's twelve .foot of water down there and it's rising. Look. My trousers are wet.
GUVNOR:
Keep your voice down.
ERIC:
I'm leaving! I can't swim.
GUV NOR:
Just serve drinks. You don't have to swim.
ERIC:
Well in a minute!
(Starts to go)
GUVNOR:
Just a minute - that's a house suit you're wearing.
ERIC: (tearing off suit)
Keep your bloody suit then! I don't care! Drown, the lot of you.
(Wades across the water in socks: shirt knocking ' a table into the pool as he goes. This makes him more enraged).
LEO:
Don't be stupid Eric.
RENEE:
Eric? What's the matter?
GUVNOR:
You're getting wet for nothing.
ERIC: (now on other side)
All my life I have hated you, I hate you. Shall I tell you why I hate you?
(Tries the doors, but they're locked. Listens at one. The fireman busts in at another)
KEVIN: A SONG
TALKING TO NO-ONE (?)
(Eric breaks doww and sits down on the other side)
ERIC: (TO FIREMAN)
Go away! Go away!
FIREMAN:
[handwritten] I have an announcement
Calm down please. The fractured gas main which caused the explosion has not yet been repaired.
ERIC:
Gas?
FIREMAN:
The water main has been shut off, but there's a lot of gas about still in pockets. Put out all lights and leave nice and quietly. Oh, and there's a taxi for a Mr. Leo Amiel and party which is waiting at the end of the street. Blue car,
They all file out through the water. We cross the water with Renee and Beryl)
RENEE:
I didn't know where to look
BERYL:
I know where I'd have looked. Isn't that what you like? What do you like?
(Governor helps people through the room and out to the door. Eric stays put. Guv'nor brings his clothes over the pool)
As they go out:
GEE GEE:
Careful about your costume Leo.
LEO:
You're all right.
GEE GEE:
What d'you mean? Oh, bathing costume.
LEO:
Right.
GEE GEE:
It wasn't really designed to go in the water, It's not shrink-proof. It's only for show. I hope there's nothing sharp in here. It's cold ! Don't make waves.
(Simon, shoes off, trousers rolled up, is carrying June across)
SIMON:
This is the most wonderful moment of my life,
(Grum's. He's trodden on something.)
JUNE;
Oh! What's up?
SIMON:
Nothing. I think I've trodden on a piece of glass.
(They reach the other side)
(Robert takes off his shoes and socks and wades across the pool)
ROBERT:
reflections, before proceeding to the matter of prize giving. This is a great country, a great country still. Difficulties there are undoubtedly, but when were there not, down the long arc of our island history. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Vikings, Normans, Spaniards, Scots, Irish, Germans, Japanese, all done. their worst and here we are still, a country, a nation, an idea, an ideal, a-tiny but indomitable family, fingers on a hand, quick to greet, but ready to curl into a fist the moment danger sounds.
(he exits)
GUVNOR:
What's the matter with you? Get it off your chest...
ERIC:
Gas....
GUVNOR; . -
Can't smell it, Not there. What's up then?
(Eric shakes head)
GUVNOR:
Is it the hours?
(Eric shakes head)
GUVNOR:
Is it the job? You don't like the job?
ERIC:
No.
GUVNOR:
Is it me?
(Eric shakes head)
GUVNOR;
I've come to form a very high regard for you, Eric, the few weeks you've been here. You're honest, which is saying a lot in this day and age. You're more honest than the people you serve, and I'm very particular who I let in. Is it the wife?
ERIC:
No... It's not the wife.
GUVNOR:
What is it?
ERIC:
It's all right. I'm all right now.
GUVNOR:
All right. Well, we'll pretend it never 'appened. Come and get your clothes on.
ERIC:
They're your clothes. And he said, everybody out....
GUVNOR:
Come on, Eric, who's going to look after the shop? I can't smell it........
.(Winning)
Course' your young nose.
ERIC:
All right. I feel ashamed of myself.
GUVNOR:
I'll just see these people out, All right?
ERIC:
All right.
(Guv'nor stays door side. Eric goes behind the bar)
Guvnor: (just by the door)
I'll be back in a minute. You're all right.
(Returns back to Eric, to comfort and stiffen him)
GUVNOR:
You see any fighting, did you Eric?
ERIC:
Fighting? No. No.
GUV'NOR:
I've seen it all. Proud to serve. My four
lads were in . Aden. Phil and Ted were in Kenya as well. You know, Mau
Mau. Marching into Crater, chins up, mm? In Aden, that was. Searching
and detaining and that. Kill or be killed, the law of nature, no two ways
about it, grenade at the ready, pin out, count three, lob it in, pin
out, count three, lob it in down, bang, out they cam, arms,
legs, bit of skull. Eh? Curfew patrol, LMGs, stens, anybody out's a Mau
Mau, stands to reason, hold him for questioning, upside down by his ankles
from a branch of a tree, he'll talk, have no fear.
(Looks at Eric) You'll be all right, son.
(Leaves)
(Eric washing glasses. Kevin is now asleep. Potato man rises from water)
POTATO MAN:
Er.... hello. The fancy dress ball. Is.it here?
(Eric just carries on washing glasses. Potato man climbs out of water, Kevin's side.)
POTATO MAN:
The fancy dress ball.,..? Have you heard of it?
(Kevin points - in the vicinity - sees bottle)
I'll never win any prizes now. Just...,. No hope. You couldn't let me have one of those, could
You?
(He exits)
KEVIN A SONG
DON'T MAKE WAVES / STRANGE LOCOMOTION (?)